A modest change to my template
This morning, as a result of reading this interesting piece at Jay Rosen's excellent blog about the movement underway in Greensboro, NC, to nurture a blogging community in the city, I followed a number of the links and found myself fascinated, once again, by the Wikipedia. That inspired me to add a link to my template (it's in the righthand column, just above the list of recent posts and titled "About Knoxville, TN") that will help readers know more about the city in which I live. This link may save me the embarrassment of not being able to answer people's questions about my home city, such as how many people live there or who the major employers are in the city. And since it is now permanently there in the template, those who are interested may learn about Knoxville till they satiate their interest from a source that is updated by the community at large. That will mean the information about Knoxville will stay current without my having to work to make that happen.

While I'm talking about Knoxville, I must acknowledge that when I came here 25 years ago from Stone Mountain, GA, which is just outside of Atlanta, I felt as if I were moving to "the sticks." But after having lived here for this long, I must confess that I love this area and this town, not because it doesn't have its warts but because it has its charms. The size and pace of the city and its life suit my temperament perfectly. My only regret is that I don't avail myself of some of the surrounding features of this area of the country often enough. For instance in particular, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is within an hour's drive of my home, and every time I take a day to go there, I come back refreshed and enriched and promise myself I'll do it more often in the future. But too often I let too much time pass between trips. I'm afraid that says something about my tendency to get trapped in the routine of my life and not varying my schedule enough. I think it may be a problem common to many of us.

- posted by Perry @ 7:15 AM